Bill Nye, the Science Guy, recently linked climate change to acts of terrorism!
His reasoning?
“There is a water shortage in Syria, this is fact based—small and medium farmers have abandoned their farms because there’s not enough water, not enough rainfall. And especially the young people who have not grown up there, have not had their whole lives invested in living off the land, the young people have gone to the big cities looking for work. There’s not enough work for everybody, so the disaffected youths, as we say, the young people who don’t believe in the system, believe the system’s failed, don’t believe in the economy are more easily engaged and more easily recruited by terrorist organizations, and then they end up part way around the world in Paris shooting people, and, of course, the water shortage is caused by climate change.”
Now, setting aside discussions about climate change, I cannot help but notice parallels between this and the reasoning in other discussions following in the wake of an act of evil. Here are a couple of examples:
-If a troubled teen shoots up his school, “the school system has failed,” claim some.
-If a population commits genocide, “they were under great economic hardship.” For example, some might cite the case of Nazi Germany (although, in that instance, one prefers to say, “a man named Hitler was able to make a country temporarily insane,” perhaps).
I could go on listing evils, but Modern Secular Man can produce an even greater host of reasons as to my reasons of why, so for the sake of my own sanity, let us move on. And I can honestly state I find Mr. Nye more an object of pitiable tragi-comedy than of scorn.
The fact of the matter is that good Modern Secular Men like Mr. Nye will accept any suggestion as to why man might commit acts of evil, other than that man might well have a root issue called “sin.” This is not to say bad schools, poverty, and such things help produce particularly wicked acts, but they are ultimately symptoms of the disease we have inherited from Adam—corrupting everything it touches. To us Christians, this should be obvious, and we will rightly tell people that these problems can only be cured by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Any attempt to treat our diseased world without applying the strong power of the Gospel to remedy things is to become like a physician who refuses to treat his patients, except with pain-killers. Granted, we help better our schools, the economic situations of those around us, and any number of things, but, as Christians, these are treatments we dispense in the hopes people will be pointed to the true cure found in Christ.
However, Modern Secular Men will have none of this Gospel cure. They demonstrate that they are but man in his fallen state—living in rebellion to God their Creator. So they reject the free offer of grace that this same God has purchased through the blood of Christ, and, instead, prefer to mock that precious blood with the very gifts given to them by God. They must maintain that they are the Masters of their fate and the Captains of their souls (or psyches, in the case of those who reject even the existence of a soul). They will bow to no one, not even the One who can cure the disease of sin that, if not done away with, will one day destroy them.
This is why Mr. Nye and his sort are pitiable. For having rejected Christ, the Source of Wisdom, they spend their days trying to come up with more opiates to silence both their and societies’ conscience that bears witness against their suppression of the Truth and the Way of Life Everlasting.
May we be ever thankful for the grace God has given us, and may God in his mercy quicken the hearts of Mr. Nye and those like him to a true repentance. Amen.
___
- It’s October: The Call of the Creepy - October 20, 2016
- An Open Letter to the Suffering Christian - September 20, 2016
- I Got the Sectarian Blues - June 9, 2016
